WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two new species of large horned dinosaurs -- close cousins of the famous herbivorous Triceratops -- have been unearthed in the western desert of the United States, paleontologists have revealed.
The "remarkable" finds -- one of the dinosaurs had a massive seven-foot (2.3-meter) skull, the other a head decorated with 15 horns -- were made in southern Utah.
Researchers said the ancient beasts were thought to have lived some 76 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period.
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| A reconstruction of the Utahceratops |
"The giant plant-eaters were inhabitants of the 'lost continent' of Laramidia, formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America," according to paleontologists, who revealed their work in an online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
The larger of the finds, with its enormous skull, was named Utahceratops gettyi, after the US state, and Mike Getty, paleontology collections manager at the Utah Museum of Natural History, who discovered the animal. Ceratops is Ancient Greek for "horned face."
In size and look, Mark Loewen, a co-author on the paper, described Utahceratops as "a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head."
Apart from a large horn over the nose, Utahceratops had short and blunt eye horns thrusting from the side of its face rather than upward, much more like the horns of modern bison.
The beast would have weighed between three or four tonnes, and stood about six feet (two metres) tall at the shoulder and hips and was 18 to 22 feet (six to seven metres) long.
The smaller of the dinosaurs is named the Kosmoceratops richardsoni, with kosmos being Latin for "ornate," after its elaborate collection of horns dotted around its skull. The last part of the name is an ode to volunteer researcher Scott Richardson who discovered two skulls of the animal.
Kosmoceratops' 15 horns were located over the nose, one atop each eye, one at the tip of each cheek bone, and the remaining 10 across the rear part of bony frill, "making it the most ornate-headed dinosaur known," the study said.
Lead author Scott Sampson described Kosmoceratops as "one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles."
Paleontologists still speculate what function such horns played in dinosaurs life, but the theory that they had a key role in attracting mates is gaining ground.
"Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators," said Sampson. "It's far more likely that they were used to intimidate or do battle with rivals of the same sex, as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex." |
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